Federal government cuts to research funding are more extensive that has been admitted with $6 billion in combined cuts to higher education and preventative health programs also to be taken into account, Labor claims.

It says the impact of lower funding could slow or stop vital research on infectious diseases such as the deadly Ebola virus.

Other efforts that Labor says will be affected are the fights against bowel or colourectal cancer, which could stop completely. These had been under way at the CSIRO.

An assessment by the opposition obtained by Fairfax Media suggests the actual value of the saving to government will be $6.1 billion, with nearly $5 billion of that coming from cuts to higher education, which Labor says will "indirectly impact on research".

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The claims came on the same day that Prime Minister Tony Abbott sought to position his government as the best friend of scientific research and development.

During a visit to Melbourne's Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre on Tuesday, Mr Abbott admitted there would be funding reductions for universities, but he claimed research itself would expand "massively" under his government.

"We want to get our higher education changes through – that's what we want to do," he said when asked if research funding would be cut even further if higher education changes remain blocked in Parliament.

"We want to get our higher education changes through because they will be good for universities, they will be good for research, they will be good for Australia, but what we are doing is we are modestly reducing government funding but at the same time we are liberating – we are liberating – our universities to achieve what they can because if there is one institution that ought to be capable of looking after its own affairs it is a university, which is, by definition, a bastion of our best and brightest.

"But I want to stress here at the Peter Mac – this is a government which is dedicated to science, which is devoted to research, and wants to massively increase Australia's research effort."

Much of that claimed "increase" would come from the proposed "medical research future fund" to be funded in large part by the controversial $7 GP co-payment.

That funding, however, remains unlikely as crossbench MPs express firm opposition to the new tax and Labor and the Greens remain intent on defeating it.

Labor leader Bill Shorten said Mr Abbot's claims were ridiculous.

"How on earth can the Prime Minister pretend he's a friend of science and research when he's secretly cutting $1 billion from research programs?

He said the medical research fund was "straight from a script of Hollowmen – it was dreamed up the week before budget to try to soften the blow on Tony Abbott breaking his election promises not to increase taxes".

"You don't fund the search for the cures of tomorrow by imposing a tax on the patients of today. As any scientist will tell you, we won't find the cures of tomorrow without world-leading mathematics, quantum computing and nano-technology to support our medical researchers and it's a disgrace that the Prime Minister is cutting investments in this critical research."

Under Labor's analysis, there is a total of $836.2 million in direct cuts to research, led by cuts to the CSIRO and the Research Training Scheme, and the abolition of Commercialisation Australia.

It says other savings will also hit research, including the 20 per cent cut to undergraduate places in universities and a more than half-billion-dollar cut to the student start-up loan scholarships scheme.

Last weekend Education Minister Christopher Pyne said university research cuts could not be ruled out if Parliament continued to block budget measures.

50 comments

Why does Australia need to do research and development when there is no intention to make anything ? If we cannot dig our products out of the ground, grow them in the sunlight, or make them through being nice to people, we won't do anything else. Telling kids to study science or engineering is simply perpetuating a myth.

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 5:30AM

Adam, Seriously do you read anything you write, or you just like complaining. I have been working in research for over 15 years and there have been many patients licensing fees, and technology that is manufactured here in australia and which has been "invented" here in australia. Research doesnt not happen over night it take 10's of years to find a target and then another 5-10 years of clinic trails costing hundreds of millions of dollars this takes time buddy and there are only a few pharma companies in australia. Any discovery whether we manufacture it or not has long term income to australia through licensing. Do you have any questions???

Commenter

Mark

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 6:51AM

Mark, hopefully there was a touch of sarcasm in adam's post.

Commenter

jofek

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 6:59AM

Adam - either you are very naive or a troll. The thing that is helping connect your computer to the world is more than likely to be WiFi. It was invented by our own CSIRO and has earned Australia over half a billion dollars with another billion owed. Without science - there would be a strong chance a number of people you know and love would have Polio or some other crazy disease. Science is everywhere and solves many problems. For Australia to not value it is monumentally stupid. Science is the path to a better future while it seems our current leaders are stuck in 1950.

Commenter

Dr Jones

Location

Double Bay

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 7:45AM

Mark, I worked as a scientist for 40 years and much of what I did was cutting edge. The work was professionally interesting, however I have wasted my life. I would have benefitted and achieved more by running a lolly shop. Have a look where technology is in Australia right now - the situation is serious. If scientists and engineers don't exercise their talents we will fall below the threshold and never get up again.

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 7:49AM

Australia should be providing R and D tax breaks and developing ways of commercialising and keeping onshore the discoveries that are made. I went to a talk recently here in Newcastle at the Australian Earth Sciences Conference. I was stunned and thrilled by what I heard was being developed here at the CSIRO in Newcastle and at the University of Queensland in Brisbane.

Oil literally grown from algae - efficiently and sustainably. Base load Solar plants that have matched the output and cost less than coal. Solar panels for the home that replicate photosynthesis that are not just more efficient than current photovoltaic panels but cheaper. Batteries that are lighter, faster to charge, hold the charge longer and are non toxic. This is only the tip of the iceberg of what’s being developed in labs around Australia.

We potentially have a sustainable, prosperous and non polluting future for this country but the politicians we’ve elected are ideologically and financially bound to old money and ignorance.

Commenter

rosscarroll.com

Location

Newcastle

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:40AM

Mark and Dr Jones, You both probably work for the government and are subject to the Crimes Act. If people such as you guys don't stand up and be counted right now, all is lost. What is your professional union and institute doing right now ? - please become politically active.

Commenter

adam

Location

yarrawonga

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 8:42AM

This is one way to achieve the $2 day labour to be able to be competitive with other countries or in the economic words, improve productivity.

Commenter

love my country

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 11:11AM

This Government decimates research funding on the one hand and then tells us what fine fellows they are for introducing co-payments that will hurt the poor in order to build up research funding over the next 20 years?

And to demonstrate to us just how seriously the PM takes the budget emergency, the debt disaster and the ending of the previous Government's waste - he justifies a taxpayer funded Liberal Party fund-raiser by a token drop in to a cancer centre.

What a cynical manipulative visionless lot we have running the show today.

Commenter

jofek

Date and time

August 27, 2014, 6:10AM

Grow up. Hurt the poor. You are like a broken record. These are the cuts that labor proposed but now they oppose. Flip flop. If you had read another publication you would have seen all the dysfunction in the last government and maybe understand why we are in such a mess. But that's not the left way is it? Better to put your head in the sand (or the Age) and pretend that the last government was wonderful.

NZ have a co-payment of $14 and it doesn't seem to be a problem. Why is Australia so infirmed that a small co-payment is such an issue. It just shows how the left are addicted to government handouts and they will fight tooth and nail to retain the things they have not worked for.

Instead of pie-in-the-sky plans that will cost the taxpayer huge amounts, it would be better to encourage the individual to take care of himself. A foreign concept to the left who want to return to the vomit of collectivism.